Distractions
by AJSky7
Summary: He asks the question, she refuses the answer. When will Helga stop letting all these distractions cloud her heart? Oneshot.


**A/N: Hello people. This is my first Hey Arnold published story, my first HA songfic. I'm nervous about this, but I also enjoyed writing it, so I hope you enjoy reading. The only thing I need to explain at this point is that song lyrics will be _bolded and italicized_. Based on a beautifully haunting love song by one of my favorite artists, this took me on a little trip of my own, so I hope it does for you guys too. I highly recommend you listen to Distractions by Sia while reading, it helped me. **

**Distractions.**

_Let's burn some incense. _

Let the incense burn us.

Her apartment is caved in nothing but onyx shadows. She sits on her couch, legs crossed, back arched against the cushions. A palm to press against her forehead. We don't want any contents to spill.

All around her is burned wax. Candles trailing along every corner of her living room. Lighted like a Roman cathedral, skipping across her face, giving such an intimate glow for two lovers to bask in.

It makes her sick.

"You idiot," she whispers with such disdain, even her lips curl at how disgusting the words taste, "I can never say yes to you."

_**Fancy, a big house**_

_**Some kids and a horse**_

_**I cannot quite, but nearly guarantee**_

_**A divorce**_

Beautiful, such a beautiful plot of white picket houses tucked comfortably in the bed of suburbia. One house holds such a gloomy aura, though, as a couple sits in their kitchen with souls that couldn't be further apart. The man keeps his fist tuck tightly against his lap, and the woman's clenching onto the wood, eyes burning a hole in the paper set before her.

"Mom! Dad!"

A door sounds now. Shuffling of feet, vibrant voices clearly about to bubble over, and a face of a slightly misshapen beautiful blonde boy makes its way to them. "You'll never guess what happened in school today!"

The man unclenches his fists, and gives his son the only smile he had left to give to anyone. "Let us hear it, Aaron!"

"We had an awards day at school, and I got Perfect Attendence, Friendliest Classmate, _and_ Best Smile! I totally beat your record, Dad!"

The woman's smile possessed a bitterness as she moves her eyes to the young lanky figure walking past the doorway. "And what did you get, Hilda?" she tries to get her daughter to speak.

"Psshh, nothing," Aaron interrupts.

The girl drops her head to let her bangs fall, and grips onto the end of her dark brown hair—her stupid, _STUPID_ colored hair. "They're just stupid superlatives," she spits, "I wouldn't dare ask for one anyway."

The man folds his smile in. "Aw, you gotta level down with the gloom and doom, honey. Let's look on the bright side."

The woman saw the sting of the girl's porcelain blue eyes, as if her own reflection. As she lets her head bob back down, she hears it.

"_What bright side, Arnoldo?" _

And she leaves.

"See?" the boy speaks up again. "I told you! She's always like that in school. I try to get her to hang out the kids in her class, even some of mine, but she just bullies everyone into leaving her alone. It's annoying."

"Ah, SHUT IT UP, OBLONG BOY!" that voice calls from the top of the stairs.

"Why don't you make me!" and with that the two take off.

The man shifts his jaw as he makes the first attempt in hours to look his wife in the eye. It's just them now.

"Why don't you ever try to talk to her?"

But the woman rejects his stare with the same broken blue eyes of her daughter's. "Why should I," and she looks at the sprawling papers the man shoved to her not too long ago, "when I'm just as confused as she is?"

But he had enough of trying to answer her questions, of trying to make her understand. He's done with her.

"I'm going," he stands, "to see what they're up to."

Another body to walk away. Another body to leave her behind. The woman didn't need to read the legal, lifeless script on the table. She knew what it said.

Divorce.

_**I think that I love you**_

_**I think that I do**_

_**So go on, mister**_

_**Make Ms. Me Mrs. You**_

"Yeah! I dare you!" Helga had a bottle of beer in tow. The keys in her hand clanked every time she flung her arms at him, but damn it, she couldn't find her door, not in the middle of all this darkness.

Arnold scowled and stepped forward. "I don't think you know how serious I am, Helga."

"THEN ENLIGHTEN ME, FOOTBALL HEAD! Go ahead, make my day."

"Oh, cut it out, Helga! I know you're not drunk, stop—," and he yanked the brown bottle from her hands, throwing it somewhere in the blackness behind him. "—stop trying to hide behind that thing! I gave you the ring to hold onto, even though I knew I you weren't ready to accept it back then. Now where is it!"

"In the trash."

"Be SERIOUS Helga!"

"What if for the first time I actually AM? You seem so hell bent on destroying your life so I figured I'd do you this solid. I'm allowing you to take it back."

His voice was just as strong as ever. So clear. How could he not be unsure? "But I don't WANT to take it back."

"Well _I_ want you to!" she tries not to hesitate. "Get it inside your fucking head: _I don't want to marry you!_"

But now it's just the feet to be shown. For the first time he's still. His left leg hesitates, but soon the rest follow suit. Slowly he backs away, and turns on his heels to run. Right into this nonexistence, this abyss. But after her roars die down, Helga's just left traumatized. Writhing in pain she hugs herself, trying to hug the hurt away. Her limbs are now alone in the picture, visibly shaken. She tries, she tries…

But she collapses.

Falling now, the rest of her comes into view. Her arms cling to her naked form, knees tucked against her chest, golden streams falling along her face. She lets the hot mist from her shower suffocate her.

_**I love you, I love you, I love you, I do**_

_**I only make jokes to distract myself**_

_**From the truth**_

But the mist only makes things clearer when she shuts off the water. A fresh look on life that she doesn't want. Cloudiness was easier to handle. Her foot taps the cold tile and it shoots up her spine. Not having any choice her feet step out one by one and drag themselves to the sink.

Mirror.

With a towel now covering her lithe body, she looks up and sees how the glass on the wall is entirely fogged. Good, now she can't see her face.

With her middle and index finger she extends her hand, pressing against the mirror. They skim it, leaving two small pathways of fogless lines in their wake. She squints as those two lines become a road.

_**Fancy, a fast car**_

_**A bag full of loot**_

_**I can guarantee**_

_**You'll end up with the boot**_

"We don't need it to be this way," the man's last words were. "Take the money, take whatever you need. I just…I just can't stay here anymore."

The woman's nails are digging into the wood of the frame now, standing on her porch watching the road. The road where her first love and only son now left her.

"You're stuck with me now, are you happy?" says a young girl. The woman turns to be met with brown hair and that same damned porcelain blue gaze. "He didn't want me, just like he didn't want you. I'm stuck in a life I hate because of you! You're a _horrible_ person, the lousiest mom ever. This family is absolute hell!"

It's as if she's been shot. The woman's legs bulk and give out under her. Her spine is scrawling, her stomach thrashing against every wall inside of her, and she slides against the wood of the doorframe. She cries.

She cries.

She cries.

She cries.

Against her headboard Helga cries.

Clutching her pillows, she cries.

_**I love you, I love you, I love you, I do!**_

_**I only make jokes to distract myself**_

_**From the truth**_

She doesn't move. She doesn't try to blink the tears away, they deserve to be there. It's in the absolute stillness of the night, right before you dream where you realize all that you have done. Where life hands you a mirror, clear of fog, and shows you everything that you've torn into shreds. After shutting her eyes all night, terrified at what would be there when they'd open, she finally pulls enough strength to pull the lids apart, wanting to see what's behind the wall of tears.

She now loosens her grip from the pillow she had embedded into her chest, and as it falls to her side and her arms open, a hand snakes up from the crook of her neck to the start of her jaw line. Haunting: the only way to describe how the thumb trails across her cheek, wiping away the tears with hardly feeling a thing.

"_Helga, I can't do this to you. I leave again tomorrow."_

"_Which is why…why I need to feel this, Arnold. I need to feel you here with me at night even when you're not there."_

"_I don't want to leave you this way, though."_

_She grabs the hand that hovered over her, and places his palm to press right into her chest. "Idiot, you'll never leave me. I understand that now. You'll always be right here."_

_They're pressed together from the waist down, and with his left elbow balancing his weight on the mattress he takes one hand to run it through her hair. Nervousness is clearly painted on his features, as his eyes shift back and forth from her eyes, her lips, and his hand under hers._

"_Helga, next time I come back it will be for good, that I promise you."_

"_Do me a favor? Make me one more?"_

"_What is it?"_

"…_Kiss me…"_

_**I LOVE YOU**_

_**I LOVE YOU**_

_**I LOVE YOU,**_

_**I DO!**_

_**I ONLY MAKE JOKES TO DISTRACT MYSELF**_

_**FROM THE TRUTH…**_

_**FROM THE TRUTH…**_

Helga picks up the phone. Did someone answer? Did it go straight to voicemail? She doesn't know. She just talks.

"You don't want to do this, Arnold. You don't want to marry me. It'll be hell for you. We'll start off seemingly fine. We'd move out of the city into some random freakin' suburb. We'll be super rich and fancy. And we'd have a son, a perfect, beautiful son that looks just like you. He'll be our angel. But then somehow I'd go and fuck it all up by getting a daughter. She's just like me, same anger, same hopelessness, except," sniff, "ain't this grand: she'd have brown hair so EVERY DAY she'd feel inferior, like she just trashed the freakin gene pool. And," sniff, "no matter what Arnold, _I'll do it_. I'll find some way to hate you, to hate myself and to push you way. _A fucking divorce_ Arnold, that's what I'll force you to do!

And it scares me. You're…you're so sure of yourself, so sure of us. This doesn't freak you out, like at all? And you…y-you-you...gave me t-this…"

Quaking now, she holds a small velvet box between her two fingers, "this BEAUTIFUL, AMAZING ring. You've answered all of my prayers, my love, _all_ of my dreams. I can't…I can't even begin t-to…tell you how that…how that…"

She tries to pull herself together, not knowing what else to say. "I love you. I love you, I love you, _I do!_ I only make jokes to distract myself…from…from…"

"Helga?"

An angelic voice drenched in static finally answers on the other side.

"A-Arnold!"

She could've sworn she heard a chuckle. "Can you open your door please…? I thought I could handle staying out here all night but it's been raining for the past twenty minutes now and-,"

"Oh my God…!"

**A/N: Well…there we go. I'm nervously tapping my fingers against my keyboard right now, not knowing what to say or what you guys'll think. But nope…can't do that. Wise friends tell me all the time not to doubt myself. I loved writing for their daughter. She was the ultimate anti-Hilda. Helga wanted to give Arnold the perfect girl of his dreams but instead gave him the worst part of her. That really messed with her head. And Aaron seemed to be the perfect boy until Hilda came in the picture and he'd just sink to her level of verbal bullying. Maybe one day I'll write more for these kids. It was…interesting… **

**I want to thank about a million people—but first off my friend CJ aka CSmitten88 for introducing me to this wonderful, amazingly talented singer. Her voice has become my thoughts ^-^. As soon as I heard this song I rushed to listen over and over, ended up falling asleep with this idea in my head, and typed it up first thing in the morning. **

**I also want to thank another friend and fellow writer darkangel1236 for her stories. One of her stories, _Fast Cars Can Only Take You So Far_, is one of my favorites and it made me confident enough to write in this style. Most things here are in present tense: that's how I would write when drafting, then I would edit later. But this time I decided that "a journey" was better suited this way. I hope I did Helga's mind justice. If you're reading this, Gaby you are an amazing poet and a writer and I feel a personal connection to your work, so you don't doubt yourself either! And oh—I'm totally pimping you XD—but pleeeaaaaseeee read her story _Keep Love in Your Heart_. Reading this story is like skipping through daises compared to hers. **

**I also want to thank another friend, Brittany aka FoxieSango aka WallynSimonsGirl, who I say to myself, noticed me when I was just surrounded by rock (a _Whisper of the Heart_ Reference). She always liked my work and encouraged my ideas. I hope one day I can be a published writer like her!**

**Wow, I sound like I'm accepting something at a cheesy awards show lol. But nevertheless, thanks again to everyone, every freakin' person apart of this fandom! A super DUPER thanks goes out to the ever-awesome BrokenRose24 for helping me upload this story. With no internet I had to do it all on my phone, and she so very generously put it up here. Where would we be without this girl? XD And THANK YOUUUU to whoever reads this. I accept anonymous reviews because I used to send them myself years ago when I never had an account, and I want to know what everyone thinks. As long as it's constructive, I'm cool. Now, before I go, here's a little more for you guys. I ended up typing more and didn't know exactly where to end it, haaa. So Enjoy!**

**The Epilogue. **

"You're a cheese ball, you know that," she smirks rubbing the towel over his head. The poor boy was drenched.

All he can do though is laugh, for his mind's still too heavy with questions, with needs. What was he to do when she felt this way?

"Helga…I never want my proposal to feel like…like a curse to you. Put you through this kinda pain… It's killing me here."

She stares at her hand as she finishes her ministrations and throws the towel behind them. "I'm pretty masochistic cuz I'm killing myself, too."

He thinks back to what she saw as their future children. "You have _the wildest_ imagination I have ever seen."

"It's not my imagination," she whispers, "it's my fear."

Oh, Helga… As if made of glass, he languidly tucks a hand to the back of her head, letting his thumb graze across the invisible line of her jaw. He lowers, and tilts her head to kiss her neck. He buries himself there for what seems like the longest before bending down grabbing her at the back of the knees and hauling her over the shoulder.

"What the-," Helga's now knocked out of her slipping psyche.

"C'mon," and he brings her to her living room, sits her on the couch, notices the dying candles and blows them out. He hates the darkness right now, and looks for a lamp to turn on. He makes his way back to her and faces her on the couch, one leg bent up on the sofa, the other hanging off to the floor. He takes her hand, about to start,

"Helga, I-,"

But he feels something underneath his thumb. He looks down. A diamond.

"Helga…" he's the one now who's left confused, "the…b-but I thought you-,"

"Pssh," she sniffs, able to recognize her own voice now. "As if I'd throw away a beauty like this."

She stares at it longer, controlling the silence between them and eventually speaks. "The only reason I was able to put this on my hand was because I slipped. I got…really, really selfish. This thing is a dream. It's always been my dream to walk down an aisle, walk into _your_ arms, n' tell you I love you with incredibly cheesy poetry. I've been in freaking love with you since I was four. How dare I, you know? How dare I try to get close to you after all I put you through? But, damn it, Arnold, you're so…beautiful," and her hands run over his chest, causing his breath to hitch. "You make me feel like a princess, like some fair maiden in a world of pink clouds. To be able to press my head against you like this," and she leans forward, snaking her arms around his neck, snuggling under his chin, "is absolute bliss."

He tries to find his voice. "So…so why are we here? Why did we fight? Why couldn't you wear it before?"

"Because I don't deserve you," she whispers again.

He gives her a squeeze. "Helga, there's nothing in this world that can make me look at myself like a prize or a reward. I'm just one guy. I didn't propose to you because I thought you deserved to have a trophy to claim or…whatever. I proposed to you because I'm _in love_ with you. I can't stand it. For over five years I've been either in the jungle or some university, or some random medical benefit. I've been everywhere except _here_ with _you_. There's no way in hell I'm doing that again. It may be totally selfish but I want to be with you for the rest of my life. I. _Want_. You."

"Don't…don't…" but she can't control it, and the tears start to bubble over and spill. She hyperventilates into his chest. She could feel her outer shell cracking, tearing down, and falling to the floor in rubble. But with each gasp she takes more fog was clearing from her head. Arnold smiles and begins rocking her back and forth. "Here we go…"

"So just curious," Arnold started. They were now reclined in the sofa, Helga cradled under his arm, sides glued to each other. After what seemed like hours Helga finally quieted her tears. Arnold was there to kiss every single one. So now he just laid running idle fingers through her hair and she with a hand on his pulse. "What was the name of this oh-so amazing daughter of ours?"

"Hilda."

"Eh, I would've chosen different."

She shoots her eyes up to his. "Seriously? But…I remember…you told me about it. She was your dream girl!"

"Helga," he smiles, "keyword there is _dream_: I got the real one right here," and he kisses her brow, the bridge of her nose, and her cheek. "Don't fog your mind up too much, love," and he grabs the hand that she had against his cheek, kissing her palm and where the ring lay. "When we get there, we'll get there."

"Can you do me a favor?"

"Yeah?"

"Promise me we'll never get a big house, a fancy car, or a horse?"


End file.
